As you walk into Evan Thomas Jones's farmhouse you are hit with a scorching dry heat and the smell of burning wood coming from the old Rayburn stove in the small cluttered kitchen.

Perched on the edge of a hill, the farmhouse is exposed to the cutting wind that blows over the Brecon Beacons and the warmth inside is delightful. Out of the window you can see the peaks of Pen y Fan and Corn Du disappearing into cloud and still coated with the early spring snow. If this was a hotel, tourists would pay a premium for these views.

But the man looking out the window is anything but a tourist. Standing straight and strong at about five foot eight, 85-year-old Evan wears green wellies, jeans and a jacket. From the window he points out the details of a valley where his family have lived for hundreds of years.

“That is the River Bran,” he explains in a soft, strong Welsh accent. “It flows down the valley until it meets the River Usk at Aberbran.”

Video Loading

Video Unavailable

Click to playTap to play

The video will start in 8Cancel

Play now

Evan is not immediately forthcoming and talkative, but this is not to be mistaken for rudeness or lack of warmth. His hospitality is the classic dry-humoured welcome that anyone who's visited this part of Wales will be familiar with. The fact he is not talking your ear off is a testament to his unassuming character rather than a lack of things to say.

Evan at his farmhouse, which has views of Pen y Fan and Corn Du rising into the clouds (Image: Richard Swingler)

Evan stands in front of his old cooker, which keeps the exposed farmhouse warm despite the biting winds outside (Image: Richard Swingler)

What a view: The Jones family has looked out over these fields and mountains for generations (Image: Richard Swingler)

His valley is one topic that will get him chatting.

“I have been been here since 1940 when I was eight,” he said. “But I have been in the valley since I was born. I have always farmed, beef and sheep and a few ponies. Now I rent the grass out for other people to graze. As a farmer you never really know which day it is as you have to work on all of them. I usually switch the television on to find out.”

Read More

Above the wooden table in his kitchen hangs a picture. Within 10 minutes of stepping over the warm threshold Evan has pointed it out.

The Jones family at the family farm in the 1900s (Image: Richard Swingler)

“How old do you reckon that photo is?” he asks.

“I can date that to a year or two. You see the little baby on the fence? How old do you think he is? Two or three? Well he was born in 1900. That is my father with the straw hat. The three women are his sisters and my aunts. With his brother by the wall. Do you want to take it down?”

The picture is taken down off the wall and Evan points out the window to the location of the old farmhouse where it was taken.

At this point his landline rings. He walks out to the living room to take what appears to be a sales call. Evan is unflappable and good-humoured as he explains politely that he is under contract. Then he returns.

“They tried to get me to change phone companies. They asked me if I have a mobile phone, which I don’t! I always just joke with them that we only use smoke signals round here,” he says with a little laugh.

Talk then returns to the picture.

Most of Evan’s generation within the family has died. He still has a sister who lives in nearby Sennybridge and plenty of nieces and nephews. One of his nephews, in fact, has taken up most of the day-to-day running of the farm.

“My father, my mother, my grandfather and my grandmother are buried in the chapel,” he says. “My auntie is there as well along with my brother. I will probably be buried there myself.”

The tiny hamlet of Soar (Image: Richard Swingler)

The idyllic hamlet used to have two tailors, a shoemaker and blacksmith (Image: Richard Swingler)

Soar sits in the foothills of Mynydd Epynt - you'll find very little mention of it online (Image: Richard Swingler)

The chapel that he is talking about is located about a mile-and-a-half up the valley in the tiny village of Soar.

Built in 1827 and rebuilt in 1874, the baptist chapel has been a big part of Evan’s life since he was born. As well as being the burial place of virtually all his family, it is also where his parents were married and, once upon a time, it was a central hub for these rural communities. A place to meet and worship.

As with many of these isolated chapels, and many larger ones in more populated areas, congregations have dwindled. Evan is this chapel's last surviving member.

“About 10 or 15 years ago we had a carol service here and there were 80 people in here - and that's not long ago,” he says.

“People are not concerned with it any more. When we have a service here we put a little bit of food out as well. When people come to the chapel we'd have a little cup of tea and some cakes.

“We used to get the preacher from Brecon once a month. We would fetch him and bring him back. We have had some since then. Norman Lloyd Davies was a preacher here in the 1980s. The one who lived in the manse next to it had three chapels in the valley.

“Until about two years ago we were doing two or three services in the summer, the harvest, and the carol service.

“It has gone down gradually. People haven’t had the interest. It is the same everywhere, chapels and churches closing.

“People have asked me about this closing but we are trying to keep it open. It is just low attendance you know. Me and my sister Mary Williams look after it now.”

A month ago Evan was devastated to hear that his beloved chapel had been vandalised. His friend Fiona Cloke, who lives opposite the chapel, called to give him the news that someone had smashed the windows and caused considerable damage. Evan agreed to show us. He put on a thick green coat, popped on his hat and reached for a large iron key.

“I don’t think we will need it as they have forced the lock,” he said.

After a quick few pictures in the living room (“how’s my hair looking?”) we get in the car and start the two-mile drive to the other side of the valley.

As we crawl our way along the narrow roads, hoping we don’t meet anything coming the other way, Evan describes lovingly what we are seeing around us.

“You see that tree? How old do you think that tree is? 150! I have a picture of that tree with a cottage behind it. The cottage is not there now.”

But Evan’s family has been living in the area since before that tree was even planted.

“We used to walk along the fields and over the bridge to the chapel,” he said as we approach the village.

“I don’t do much walking now. I'm too lazy for that!”

Evan walks among the graves of his family in the graveyard at Soar Chapel (Image: Richard Swingler)

The inside retains a certain beauty, though there's just one worshipper left (Image: Richard Swingler)

Read More

We arrive at the village of Soar in the foothills of Mynydd Epynt, an isolated place where several thousand acres were bought up by the military in 1939, forcing many families to leave their homes and vacate their land. To call Soar small is an understatement. If you type “Soar Powys” into Wikipedia you are given two sentences, written in Welsh.

Evan is first-language Welsh. “I learnt the foreign language when I was five,” he laughs when I ask him about it.

We park at the chapel and graveyard and he leads us up the path and stops at the first gravestones. These belong to his parents, grandparents, aunt and brother. He pauses for a moment, not speaking, before taking us to the chapel.

He is right, the big iron key is not needed and the door opens with a push. The inside of the chapel is incredible.

Producers from Hollywood looking for a set should head to Soar Chapel. Many features are original and from the 19th century construction. It is clear that spiders have made up the main congregation for years - cobwebs cover the pews and old leather-bound bibles (in English and Welsh).

Evan Jones is the last worshipper at Soar's chapel - but he's not letting it get him down (Image: Richard Swingler)

Read More

It has clearly been a loved building in the past but here and there weeds poke through cracks in the walls and the paint is starting to peel. Once you step inside you can hear the crack of broken glass underfoot and the damage caused by the vandals is clear.

“Six of the windows have been smashed,” says Evan. As he walks round the chapel pointing out where the thrown rocks lay, he shows you where the old wooden pews have been chipped. Some of the damage is small and only immediately noticeable to the eyes of someone who has known and worshipped here all their life. Other damage is more clear. The windows have been boarded up with cardboard with the Amazon Prime labels still on and it makes the once proud chapel a shadow of its former self.

“The ones that did it couldn't have gone no lower, could they?” said Evan as he stands in the centre of the room. “To vandalise a chapel. A lot of this stuff has been here since it had opened. It is wanton damage.”

Despite being clearly upset by the destruction he remains balanced, thoughtful and unflappable. When asked what he would want to happen to the perpetrators he simply says: “I would want them to think about what they have done and pay for the damage. It's a job to think of anybody in case you think of the wrong ones. You don't want to accuse anybody in case they are innocent.”

A Welsh copy of an old bible lies in the chapel (Image: Richard Swingler)

Cobwebs stretch between spindles on the church altar (Image: Richard Swingler)

Read More

Once outside the chapel, Evan starts wandering amongst the gravestones. It is silent except for a few birds and the crunch of his feet on some of the overgrown graves. Unprompted, he starts giving a history of the area.

“There are a lot of memories in here. See the two woods up there? That is where I was born. It was my mother’s home. We were the eighth generation there.

“Soar used to have two tailors in the village years ago. There was a midwife, a shoemaker, a blacksmith and a preacher. I'm not sure what else. There wasn't a pub though. Somebody who was born there once went on to be High Chancellor. And a preacher that was born there went on to run the biggest baptist chapel in London.

“The shoemaker left that cottage there to the chapel. He was a bit of a sportsman. He used to do a bit of boxing when my father was young.

“There is also a stone by the house where the shoemaker lived where they used to hit the leather to get the shape of the shoe. It's still there now somewhere. After the shoemaker left it to the chapel the preacher lived here. It's now been sold off to a judge. He is a nice fellow, a chap you can talk to.”

When asked how it feels being the last worshipper at the chapel, Evan is as straight-shooting as ever: “Aye, it is a bit lonely. We have good friends that come here, mind, and help us out like. I am the last member though. Once they are closed they don't reopen, that is the trouble. It doesn't look so bad from the outside except the windows. I hope that more people will come once we spruce it up inside.”

He hopes talking about the vandalism publicly will raise some awareness of the chapel and bring in some people for the services. He is immediately proved right about the “good friends” that can help. In the two hours we are there, two people come and chat to him and his neighbour Fiona has made him a cup of coffee (“very milky please”).

As we head back to his house I am concerned that 85-year-old Evan has spent hours on his feet and has eaten nothing for at least four hours.

Proving that eighth generation farmers are as tough as the hills they till he laughs off my concerns: “Don’t worry, I can go without for days!”

Once we are back in front of the wood burner again we set about taking more pictures. Evan chats away, only stopping to point out an enormous red kite flying in the next field.

“I am probably the only one in this valley that has flown an aeroplane,” he said. “It was about 10 years ago. There was a girl who had a pilot's license and she wanted to know if it was viable to land the plane on our flattest field. We went up in the plane and it was dual controls and once we were up 1,000 feet they let me guide it from Swansea to Sennybridge.

“I'm probably the only one in the valley who has fished in the Pacific as well. It was outside Vancouver, and I caught a fish! It was about 30 pounds.”

Once the pictures are done, Evan insists we stay for a cup of tea. He boils the kettle, heating the pot thoroughly before adding the teabags and water. He then puts it on the Rayburn to keep it warm. He pours us a big mug of (“milky”) tea and insists we eat our weight in biscuits. After that we say our goodbyes and he sees us to the door after getting our assurance we will send him a copy of the paper.

Evan keeps the tea warm on his wood-burning stove in his farmhouse kitchen (Image: Richard Swingler)

He chats away as we share the tea and biscuits (Image: Richard Swingler)

As he waves us off and we leave him on his blustery hilltop it is hard not to feel sad to be leaving him there, the last surviving worshipper at Soar Chapel.

With the dwindling numbers and the vandalism it's easy to paint a picture of declining rural community. One could say that the fact that not so long ago there were 80 people attending a service speaks to how the old community spirit has gone. But it's not that simple. Yes, the numbers in the chapel have declined and there is no resident preacher. The community may have changed. The tailors, shoemaker and blacksmith are long gone.

However, in the five hours we spent in Evan’s company he had more meaningful social interactions than many people in Cardiff, 50 miles south, would expect in a week.

When we arrived the owner of a neighbouring farm had popped in to use Evan’s phone because his was broken. In Soar, Evan made a point of speaking to 47-year-old Neil Mansfield who had discovered the damage to the chapel.

Neil and his family had moved to the village from Cardiff two years ago and they were quickly sat around a kitchen table having a brew with Evan talking about how they could keep the chapel running. And there's still a community in the peaceful isolation of the valley. Fiona, who keeps an eye on the chapel, and Neil are not originally from the valley but are now integral members who care for the area.

Fiona Cloke and Neil Mansfield, who live opposite the chapel and help keep it going (Image: Richard Swingler)

Some people would describe the Evans of this world as “proper Welsh” and “salt of the earth”. Perhaps that would be accurate. But what we found was simply a charming, warm, unassuming and content man who just wanted the people who had vandalised his beloved chapel and the resting place of his family to “think about what they had done” and “pay for the damage”.